February 2, 2012
by bbehring
Here’s some key concepts for life and fitness. I think these are right on the money. Remember refined sugar is the enemy! Work to eliminate refined sugar and all processed foods from your diet. While difficult to do, it is very doable. Once you have done this, consistently over time, your body will feel fantastic! It’s amazing the difference in my body and the way I felt back when I ate crap vs. now eating clean/primal! Huge difference in my athletic performance and in my general physical well being when eating clean. Remember consistency is the key. Complacency will defeat you!
A Health and Fitness Lifestyle: Key Concepts
adapted from The Primal Blueprint 21 Day Total Body Transformation
1. Genetic Expression – Your natural genetic expressive tendencies can be triggered, turned on, and turned off by signals you provide through your lifestyle choices. Lifestyle choices including, but not limited to, nutrition, exercise, sleeping habits, fresh air/sun exposure, etc.
2. Healthy and Fit by Design – Your body was designed to be fit and healthy. You were designed to eat whole foods, to move (exercise) with variety and intensity, and to move consistently and continuously throughout the day at lower levels of intensity. Your body was not designed to carry 40 pounds of extra weight (fat).
3. Fat as an Energy Source – Your body was designed to burn fat for energy. The standard American diet (SAD) has artificially created a sugar and carbohydrate based metabolism. The syndromes associated with living as a sugar/glucose/carb burner (or addict) are pervasive, substantial, and potentially deadly.
4. Body Composition is Driven by Nutrition – Moderating your exposure to elevated insulin levels is crucial to your body’s ability to efficiently burn fat and metabolize excess fat. Elevated insulin causes energy system failures, immune deficiencies, systemic inflammation, and poor hormone regulation (which can affect stress, appetite, thyroid, etc).
5. Grains Are Not a Healthy Base – Basing the bulk of your calories on grain based foods, as taught for so long by the “food pyramid” and what is a by-product of an over abundant and subsidized grain food industry is detrimental to health. Grain based foods tend to be cheap sources of calories that easily convert to sugar. The base of the pyramid with regards to quantity should be vegetables and leafy greens. The base of the pyramid with regards to calories should be protein (meat, fish, dairy, eggs).
6. Saturated Fat and Cholesterol are not the Enemies – Several cultures have been the subject of studies because they confounded food scientists by being based on saturated fats, yet their people experience little, if any, of the heart disease and syndromes that plague the SAD. The reason is that the true heart disease risk increases are driven by polyunsaturated fats, simple sugars, elevated insulin levels, and stress.
7. Traditional ‘Cardio’ to Burn Calories is Ineffective – Bruning calories through cardio type exercise does little to change your basic metabolism, fitness, or body composition. The “Cal In – Cal Out = Change in Body Weight” equation is a faulty and inefficient model. Chronic use of rat wheel exercise machines (treadmill, stair master, elliptical, etc.), chronic long slow distance biking/running/swimming/etc. can lead to lean muscle breakdown, systemic fatigue, injury, and burnout.
8. CrossFit is the Key to Optimal Fitness – Regular training with constantly varied functional movements across broad time and modal domains will promote your optimal genetic expression while delivering a high state of general physical preparedness and physical readiness.
